Finance committee  Those are excellent questions. Thank you very much. We received some funding from the Royal Bank, and we have established an indigenous mentorship program. It's a very small program, but it's something that could be built upon. I take your point. We have very few indigenous tra

Finance committee  I'd be delighted to. We've made a proposal, for a number of years, that the way to increase the stability of our institutions and to raise private sector support—I mean money or securities, not donations of works of art—would be to provide a matching mechanism. Currently, there

Finance committee  There are about 36,000 employees in museums, and 115,000 volunteers. To make another point on your earlier question, donations currently are about 10% at museums. We believe the matching donation can take that up to 20%. In the United States it's closer to 40%, but it is a diffe

Finance committee  Hello, Mr. Chair. My name is John McAvity and I am the executive director of the Canadian Museums Association. I am joined this morning by Mr. Bob Laidler. He is a volunteer, one of 115,000 volunteers who work in the museum sector. Museums are one of the most important valuab

Finance committee  On Tuesday of this week, your colleagues on the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage released a long-awaited report on the state of Canadian museums. It took two years to complete, and contains 15 significant recommendations to move forward and address the issues of the museum

Finance committee  Federal funding for museums has declined significantly over the years. The main funding mechanism, the museum assistance program, was started in 1972 with a budget of $7 million per year. Today, 46 years later, that budget is about $6 million—less than in 1972. If it had kept pac

Finance committee  First of all, we were not consulted on or aware of the transfer of two very major programs to the Museum of History. We have all the faith in the world in the Museum of History. It's a very well run organization. The question is what does “complementary to” mean? We're arguing

Finance committee  Actually, we previously recommended to this committee that additional funds be put into internship programs. We operate on behalf of the Government of Canada what is called Young Canada Works. It is so oversubscribed and it is so important to developing skills by younger Canadian

Finance committee  There is insufficient funding to meet the demands of the program.

Finance committee  The Government of Canada has.

Finance committee  No, it still does. It has been consistently funded. We have started going out actively to the private sector and bringing in some corporate and private money to help with internships. That's a major challenge for us, but at least we're showing entrepreneurship in doing that. The

Finance committee  Ninety per cent of internships are. Yes.

Finance committee  Actually, they're public programs. They're not new programs. They've been in existence for a number of years, and they are available to all Canadians. They're open and accessible. That, to us, is a very important asset. Our concern is simply in the transfer to the Museum of His

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. In the interests of time and temperature, I will try to be under the five-minute line. We are very pleased to be here. I'm John McAvity, the executive director of the association. We have approximately 2,000 not-for-profit museums and galleries all across

Canadian Heritage committee  I'm not sure what the mandate is. I see what the purpose is, but I don't see a paragraph here that specifically says “mandate”, so the terminology being used is.... I assume we're talking about the clause that says “purpose”, because then that is reinforced in the paragraphs unde